One Saturday night, two weeks and a day since Marian's arrival, the whole population of the town were at the Grand, either drinking, gambling, or purchasing provisions of Cutey's deputy, who presided over the tin can department with activity and grace; and all, whatever their occupation, were swearing vigorously and unceasingly.
Marian sat up stairs in her tiny room burning with feverish anxiety. Her long years of home-waiting, the comfortless journey, even the first week of uncertainty, had been easier to bear than this anxious waiting. The Mexicans had not hesitated to say that he must be dead by this time; but that she did not believe; he might be starving, crazed, nearly dead, but surely she might see him once more and hear him say that he forgave her; perhaps even nurse him back to reason and health and hope again.
The brawling and laughter down stairs made her shudder. "If I was only a man!" she whispered fiercely, clenching her little hands. "Can I do nothing but sit here and wait? Oh, God, be merciful!" she cried.
Then suddenly a thought flashed into her mind. She did not stop to think of it; she acted upon it.
The Doctor's partner, profoundly studying his cards, was somewhat disconcerted to see the table kicked over, and the Doctor's "hand" on the floor. Without a question, he put his hand back for his pistol, when the sudden stillness in the room caught his attention, and all that followed caused him to forget the affront.
In the centre of the room, her disordered hair flying about her face, her clear eyes flashing with excitement, her cheeks flaming with color, more beautiful than they had ever seen her look before, Marian stood waiting for silence. Men crowded up to the doorways and filled the windows, certain from the sudden quiet that "something was up."
"Won't you help me?" she cried out. "What can I do to find him? He may be starving to death! He would not have left you to starve! You"—she gasped and drew her breath hard—"you—whom he was good to—you remember—a hundred things, but you forget him! and let him—rave his life away—and starve to death—alone." She choked. She could not speak another word! but she stood with her lips parted, her eyes flashing, looking eagerly, almost angrily, from one face to another.
Circus Jack bounded on to a table; it was rickety, and reeled with his weight; but Punks and Bob Jinks steadied it; they were friends of Jack's; besides, they had just won from him at poker, and felt very friendly. "Fellers!" said Jack, "to-morrow's Sunday. I'm going out ter hunt fer poor Jim, and ain't comin' back till I find him. Them as wants ter 'comp'ny me kin call at my cabin to-night."
"I will go with you, Jack," said the Doctor impressively.
"Me, too, you bet!" cried Scotty.